Tag Archives: hunger strike

This communiqué is to inform that all the political prisoners of the FARC-EP who are in the high and medium security prison of San Isidro, Popayán, have begun a hunger strike for an indefinite period of time until solutions are provided for the following requests:

1. We demand the improvement of health service in this prison, since it is currently very precarious, it does not have medicines or qualified specialists; added to this is the negligence of the prison guards (INPEC) when inmates are to be attended and taken to health area, as is the case of Marino Fernandez Puyo when on February 9 at 3:45 pm he was stabbed with a rod by another intern with psychiatric problems; Marino spent a whole week demanding medical attention; the systematic medical malpractice on part of the penitentiary establishment to control the infection produced by the attack lead to his death on February 17 as if it were a sentence against him.

This is a continuous and sad reality that lives among us; these types of cases have repeated themselves in the past, which is why we demand the improvement of the health system on part of the government in order to guarantee decent living conditions for human beings.

2. We request from the National Government its compliance with what has been agreed in the Peace Agreement and to speed up the completion of the camps in the Transitional Local Zones for Normalization, since to this point not even 20% of the works have been completed. Please don’t delay any longer the release of political prisoners and make the Amnesty Law a reality, let’s not play the game of the enemies of peace.

On behalf of the FARC-EP we have shown the greatest efforts to carry out the Agreement.

The comrades who participate in the hunger strike are 97 political prisoners of war.

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On October 21, 2016 Robert Earl Council (aka Kinetik Justice Amun) went
on a Hunger Strike based on threats against his life from the Alabama
Department of Corrections (ADOC) administration and staff. He was
transferred to a supermax facility, and water was shut off in his cell
in an effort to force him out of his hunger strike. His transfers
happened after the media exposed the ADOC during a nationwide prison
strike to demand changes to prison conditions and unpaid labor.

As of November 8, 2016, Kinetik Justice is in danger for his life, and
organisers are calling for action.

Kinetik has been inside for over 22 years and is a co-founder of the
Free Alabama Movement which has organized successful work stoppages to
demand basic human rights and has provided education and legal support
to hundreds of incarcerated people.

CALL WITH DEMANDS TODAY: Call the Alabama Department of Corrections and
Alabama Governor Robert Bentley’s office demanding 1) that Kinetik
Justice be transferred from Limestone Correctional Facility; and 2) that
Pastor Kenneth Glasgow of The Ordinary People’s Society be allowed to
visit him and assess his condition immediately.

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At dawn on September 6, a police operation in Turinled to the raids of around thirty houses and arrests of five anarchists, who were then charged with conspiracy to commit terrorism, in regards to the FAI. The arrestees are Anna, Marco, Sandrone, Danilo and Valentina, as well as the ongoing investigations of Nicola andAlfredo, who are already imprisoned.

The eight anarchists targeted in the policeoperation “Scripta Manent” are in four different prisons, and in high security “AS2” wings. They are all in isolation, but can receive post. Alfredo Cospito and Anna Beniamino are in hunger strike since 3 and 10 October respectively, against the isolation regime.

Here are everyone’s addresses, write to them to show that we care, and we won’t forget them!

Today detainees from Yarl’s Wood detention centre announced they were going on hunger strike. Yarl’s Wood is a 400-person capacity migrant detention centre in Bedfordshire, UK, run by Serco. The hunger strike follows another ‘Shut down Yarl’s Wood’ demo organised by Movement for Justice this afternoon, where hundreds of people surrounded the centre, made lots of noise, and communicated via phone with detainees.

While the demo was going on, screws locked up the prisoners in a bid to undermine solidarity, but the women responded with their own resistance.

From Detained Voices:

We have decided to go on hunger strike. It was a last minute thing because of what they have done to us. They have locked us up. In all the units we are on hunger strike. We are not sure how long for. If we have to go tomorrow we will as well. We are entitled to do a peaceful demonstration. It is our right, it is our freedom of speech.

From 1:30 when the protestors are coming up. They locked us up they up and they didn’t want us to shout out to the protestors through the window. We are locked up already in this centre and they lock us up again inside. They didn’t want us to shout out – we are on the other side of the building from the protestors. They lock us in Crane. The women in Dove are locked in Dove. Avocet as well. We all have to stay in our units. This is the first time they have done this.

Why are they frightened if they think they have nothing to hide? Why are they panicking like that?

There are so many officers, some of them area between the units, some are in the corridors, monitors and officers to keep an eye that you don’t even shout and you don’t even do anything. They have never done this before.

We want to appreciate the people to show us support but we were locked up. We are being treated like objects and not human being.

We will know what the outcome is today and see if we have to go tomorrow.

We ask them why did they lock us up. It is our freedom of speech. it is our right. We want an answer.

On Friday 27.5. 2016 in Pankrác remand prison anarchist Martin Ignačák accused of terrorism went on hunger strike. He did this because on 29.4.2016 the City court in Prague ruled in favour of his release from remand and the state’s attorney appealed this decision to the High court in Prague. On friday 27.5. 2016 the High court in Prague extended the remand. Therefore the anarchist has decided to protest by going on hunger strike and has stopped taking in nutrition and liquids. This type of hunger strike threatens the life of the hunger striker after a week.

During the year long investigation of the preparation of a supposed terrorist attack the imprisoned anarchist has exhausted all legal options, to achieve objective procedure of the respective organs active in the criminal proceedings. None of them were taken into account. This is why he now chose this radical form of expression, to draw attention to this manipulated police case. ” I consider the approach of the
investigators and the police to be very problematic, it is a threat to the freedom of every human being, a threat to freedom of speech, a threat to activism that tries to lead to a better world , and this doesn’t just involve anarchists.”

Martin is being prosecuted in the so called Fénix case from April 2015, in which altogether 5 people were accused of the preparation and the failure to notify of a terrorist attack on a train. Martin is the only one who has been in remand prison this whole time and his detention has now been extended after the intervention of the state’s attorney. As a reason for the extension of remand the state’s attorney used the testimony of a police agent who infiltrated the anarchist movement in 2014. From his testimony the state’s attorney drew the conclusion that
Martin might attempt to escape to Spain. Another reason, according to him, was that Martin ” is connected to the so called Síť revolučních buněk/ The Network of Revolutionary Cells (SRB) and therefore also to similar organizations abroad.” The police spoke about SRB when they began Fénix and provided information to the media. ” Any connections between the 5 attacks ascribed to SRB and all the detained and accused
have been refuted. The investigators themselves have ruled it out” says Martin.

At the moment Martin is the second longest detained prisoner in the Pankrác remand prison. For 13 months he lives there under conditions, that negatively affect his psychological and physical state. For example he has been refused food free of animal products, which means he practically doesn’t have access to hot food. Friends, who have come to visit him have been mentioned by name in the indictment. Police from the Department for combating organized crime have started to collect information on Martin’s sister, only because she tries to support her brother in whichever way she can.

For Martin parole would mean that after 13 long months he would again see his friends, family, nature, that he wouldn’t be exposed to emotional deprivation and physical hardship.

Update Sunday, May 29th: Martin’s sister Pavla B. joined her brother in the protest and this morning she has started hunger strike herself as well.

Around the world hunger strikes are used by prisoners as a last resort in struggling against the oppressive prison system. Here’s an update about a couple of hunger strikes from Palestine and the United States, but there are probably many more hunger strikes going on as people on the inside resist.

From Palestine… It has just been announced that Khader Adnan’s 66 day hunger strike is over and that he will be released in April from “administrative detention” (means that Israel can detail him indefinitely). There were grave fears for his deteriorating health.

From the United States… It has been announced that Christian Alexander Gomez died earlier this month while on hunger strike in Corcoran State Prison. The 27 year old man passed on six days after he and 31 other prisoners in the Corcoran State Prison’s administrative segregation unit began refusing food to protest restrictions on access to health, good food and legal services.

Prisoners in the Corcoran Administrative Segregation Unit (ASU) have been striking for periods of time since late December 2011. It’s likely that some number of prisoners have continued striking up to quite recently. As of February 9, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), disclosed that 30 men were still striking and a representative in the office said that prisoners had been intermittently striking for the last month. The CDCR has consistently misreported the numbers of prisoners on strike around California, and the group Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity heard rumors of numbers anywhere from 50 to 200.

The Corcoran strikers are rallying around 11 demands. The demands of the Corcoran strikers are somewhat different than those of the strikes sparked in Pelican Bay State Prison’s Security Housing Unit (SHU) this past summer and fall, which at one point included 12,000 prisoners in 13 prisons across California. Administrative Segregation Units are often used as holding places for prisoners in route to SHU facilities, or who are waiting for release back into general population.

February 20th has also been called as a national occupy day in support of prisoners in the United States. Check out their website here: http://occupy4prisoners.org/

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Barry Horne was an animal liberationist who quite literally died for his beliefs whilst serving an 18 year prison sentence. Whilst in prison he engaged in 3 hungerstrikes in less than 3 years, the first two whilst he was still on remand.

Barry Horne was arrested in Bristol in July 1996, spent a lot of time on remand at Bristol prison (in Horfield), and was tried at Bristol crown court. His hungerstrikes were a political action aimed at forcing first the Tory government, and then NewLabour, into taking action to end vivisection and then general abuse of animals for profit. During his hungerstrikes and throughout his prison sentence until his death there was a masive upsurge in animal rights related actions, and some of the most well known such campaigns began, including at Hill Grove (cat) Farm and Huntingdon Life Sciences. Continue reading →